great quotes from great thinkers

I just had the desire to pass on some of the words that influence me. Great people who have led great lives always seem to say it better, or maybe it is only because of their greatness that they are heard, but whatever...

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
H. L. MenckenUS editor (1880 - 1956)

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
VoltaireFrench author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
VoltaireFrench author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower34th president of US 1953-1961 (1890 - 1969)

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Thomas MannGerman writer (1875 - 1955)

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert EinsteinUS (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
Carl Sandburg, The People, Yes (1936)US biographer & poet (1878 - 1967)

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mahatma Gandhi, "Non-Violence in Peace and War"Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)